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Jason:
I do not think a neutron take more trhan a finite amount of voltage
to be able to fire. I do wonder if merely replacing the bio parts by
processing hardware, do you lose the part of the complexity of the
mind? Np problem with an antimatter man and mind.

If you estimate that our mechanist level of substitution is so low
that we have to emulate the internal complexity of the neutron, it
means that the substitution level is very low, but the UDA reasoning
would still go through.
Only if the complexity of the neutron behavior is both infinite (or
non Turing emulable) AND relevant for the computation on which your
mind relies "here and now" would the reasoning stop to go through.

To be sure, I really doubt that we have to take into account the
internal aspect of the particles which constitutes our flesh. But the
point is that to stop the working of the UD argument you have to put
infinities in both mind and flesh, and say "no" to the digitalist
surgeon.

Bruno

On Dec 14, 10:30 am, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:

Ron,

I think the path to seeing the mind as a program is easier in this
way:
1. It's not what the parts of the brain are made of its how they
function

all the same information as the equivalently organized and behaving
brain it
replaced, but in what sense could one say this one's beliefs are
wrong but
this one's beliefs are right? There would be no way to ever prove
that one
is conscious and one is not, it would be wrong for no reason at
all. This
is what it takes for the idea of zombies to be consistent.
Further, the
real brain and zombie brain could never even report feeling any
different,
since both brains contain the same information and same knowledge,
how is it
possible for one to report differences in experience? This
addresses your
question of whether or not there would be an impact to one's
consciousness

if their brain were swapped by a device with equivalent processing of
information.
5. If zombies are impossible, then any device containing the same

information and processing it in the same way as another mind
should have

the same consciousness.
6. By Church-Turing thesis, a Turing machine (computer) can process

information in any way that information can be processed. Note
that to say

the mind is emulable by a computer says very little about a mind, it

essentally says only that that the mind is a process. The analogy
is that a
computer can process information in any possible way given the
appropriate
programming, just as a record player can produce any possible sound
given
the appropriate record. Saying the mind is emulable by a computer
is like
saying voice is emulable by a record player. (It is not a very big
leap,

conceptually)
It doesn't matter if the process is like parallel programs, networked

computers, etc. a single computer can process information in the
same way as
a whole bunch of computers running in parallel without any
difficulty. The
thing computers have difficulty with are infinities. Questions
which take
an infinite amount of processing or infinite amount of information
to answer
can't realistically be simulated. On this Bruno has said, if you
don't
believe the neuron requires an infinite amount of information to
decide

Bruno:
Thanks for the weekend wishes.
I believe the Brain runs programs, in parallel, but are they the

Mind, and are they able to be run as Turing emulable programs with
no

impact to one's consciousness?
Ronald

On Dec 11, 7:51 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 11 Dec 2010, at 01:01, ronaldheld wrote:

Bruno:

I stand corrected on steps 6 and 7. I believe I understand
your UDA

diagrams.

OK. Thanks for saying.

Before I can comment, I need to decide waht progrmas are and
are not Turing emulatable,

All programs are Turing-emulable. That is a consequence of Church
thesis.
Many computer scientists tend to consider that Church Thesis is

trivially true, but, when you study it you might realize that CT
is on

the contrary quite miraculous. Like Gödel saw, it is a miracle that
the Cantor-like diagonalization procedure does not lead outside the

class of partial recursive functions. The gift is a very robust
notion

of universality. The price to pay for that is also very big: the
abandon of any complete TOE (unless ultrafinitism, ...). But

psycholically that price is a relief: it prevents computer
science to

be reductionist.

and if the brain runs a program, parallel
programs, or something else.

Brains and other biological organs and organisms, run parallel
programs. But all digitalizable parallel programs can be made

equivalent with dovetailing on non parallel programs. The UD does
run

an infinity of programs in parallel, for example. So the brain
parallelism does not change anything unless the brain is not a
digitalizable physical process (but then we go outside the scope of
Digital Mechanism, the theory I am working in).
Theoretical Computer Science is, amazingly enough, something non
dimensional. This of course forces us to explain why dimensionality
seems so important in the physical sciences, or in the observable
sharable (first person plural) realities.

Don't hesitate to ask for precisions.

Good week-end,

Bruno

On Dec 7, 4:10 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 06 Dec 2010, at 19:00, ronaldheld wrote:

Bruno(and others)

I am going to do this in two posts. The first is my
interpretation

of your UDA. Since the Brain is a Turing emulatable program
running on
a biological platform(to start), steps 1-5 are not controversal.
Step
6 scan(and annilates) the body and only places the program on
another

physical hardware platform, for a finite amount of time. Step
7 is

the
usual scan and annihilate,

Well, step 6 and 7 use step 5 where you don't need to
annihilate the

original anymore.
A (classical) teleportation without annihilation is a duplication

where the original is considered annihilate and reconstituted
at his

original place wihout delay.

You need that to understand that if you do an experience of
physics,

you have to to consider into account all computations in the UD

execution to predict your future experience (including "looking
at a

measuring apparatus needle'. OK?

and then looks for the program in the UD
still on some physical platform?

Yes. At step seven, you have already that DM entails
indeterminacy,

non locality and even (exercice) non clonability of anything

'physically' observable. (mechanism accepts the 3-duplicability
of

the

person which is not something physically observable (yet
inferable)).

Step 8 removes the physical universe
and had the UD "running" in Arithmetical Platonia?

Yes. The UD is somehow given by the true sigma_1 arithmetical

propositions (with shape like ExP(x) P decidable) together with
their
many proofs. This can be derived from a well known result
asserting
that the computable functions are representable in Robinson
(tiny)

arithmetic, or you can use the beautiful work of Putnam, Juila

Robinson, Davis, and Matiyazevitch). This makes it Turing
universal,

and makes the UD emulated in Platonia (or in any model of Peano
Arithmetic, that is a tiny part of arithmetical truth).

If I basically understand this correctly, then I will
interpret UDA

from my(physicla scineces POV).

Normally the reasoning does not depend on any points of view
(that is

why is a deductive reasoning or a proof). The step 8 is more

difficult, and I might resend the Movie Graph Argument (MGA)
already

sent. Step 8 explains the necessity of immateriality. It explains
that

the physical supervenience thesis cannot work, unless you
accept the

idea that an inactive piece of material has an active physical

activity in a computation, and still say "yes" to the doctor,
like

Jack Mallah apparently. To avoid this I add sometimes that the

survival, when saying yes to the doctor, is done "qua
computatio",

and

I am working to make this more precise. It is always possible
to put
some magic in the notion of matter to build a fake comp
hypothesis

saving primary matter, but then you can save any theology, and it
seems to me quite an ad hoc move. But I am interested in hearing
your
Physical Science point of view.

Bruno

Ronald

On Dec 2, 10:55 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 02 Dec 2010, at 15:51, ronaldheld wrote:

Bruno:
I looked at UDA via the SANE paper. I am not certain the the
mind is
Turing emulatable, but will move onward.

OK. It is better to say brain instead of mind. The doctor
proposes an

artificial digital brain, and keep silent on what is the
mind, just

that it will be preserved locally through the running of the
adequate
computer.

Using Star Trek transporter
concepts, I can accept steps 1 through 5.

Nice. Note that the Star trek transporter usually annihilates
the

original (like in quantum teleportation), but if I am a
"program" (a
natural program) then it can be duplicated (cut, copy and paste
apply
to it).

Step 6 takes only the mind

(the program, or the digital instantaneous state of a program)

and sends it to a finite computational device or the entire
person

into a device similar to a Holodeck,

It is just a computer. A physical embodiment of a (Turing)
Universal

Machine. Assuming the "mind state" (here and now) can be
captured

as

an instantaneous description of a digital program, nobody can
feel

the

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